B?*n6r 


AM!  nary  Order   of    the  Loyal 
Legion  of    the  U,  S. 
Reco!  lections   of  Abraham 
Lincoln   by  Captain   Nelson 

Thomasson 


LINCOLN  ROOM 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


MEMORIAL 

the  Class  of  1901 

founded  by 

HARLAN  HOYT  HORNER 

and 

HENRIETTA  CALHOUN  HORNER 


MILITARY  ORDER  OF  THE  LOYAL  LEGION  OF 
THE  UNITED  STATES. 

COMMANDERY   OF  THE    STATE   OF   ILLINOIS 


Recollections  of  Abraham  Lincoln 

Read  before  the  Illinois  Commandery  of  the  Loyal  Legion,  Febru- 
ary 3,  1927,  and  published  by  order  of  the  Board  of  Officers. 

By  CAPTAIN  NELSON  THOlMASSON 

Companions: — The  first  time  I  ever  heard  of  the  name  of 
Abraham  Lincoln  was  some  time  in  the  '40's,  when  I  was  a  mere 
boy;  probably  about  1846,  or  a  little  later.  It  was  written  in  a 
book  by  my  father.  The  book  was  about  4  by  10  inches  in  size 
and  contained  a  lapel  where  odd  papers  were  kept.  On  one  page 
Was  the  entry :  "We  came  in  the  stage  from  Pittsburgh  to  Cum- 
berland. In  the  vehicle  was  John  Wentworth,  of  Chicago,  and 
Abraham  Lincoln,  of  Springfield,  111.  We  took  the  barge,  or  boat, 
at  Cumberland  and  journeyed  on  to  Washington,  D.  C."  This  book 
fell  to  me  after  the  death  of  my  brother,  Col.  C.  L.  Thomasson, 
who  met  his  death  at  the  head  of  Rousseau's  Brigade  at  Mission- 
ary Ridge  in  1863,  and  I  kept  it  until  the  Chicago  fire  of  1871 
burned  it. 

The  first  time  I  ever  saw  Lincoln  was  about  the  year  1858.  My 
father  and  I  were  sitting  out  on  a  little  balcony  over  the  northeast 
corner  of  Clark  and  Randolph  Streets,  Corbin's  cigar  store.  My 
father,  looking  east  on  Randolph,  suddenly  cried  out :  "There  is 
old  Abe  Lincoln."  He  said  to  me :  "Put  on  your  hat  and  we  will 
go  and  see  him  if  he  stops  at  the  Sherman  house,"  which  he  did, 
across  the  street.  But,  of  course,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  hardly  stepped 
down  the  several  steps  leading  to  the  Sherman  when  he  was  sur- 
rounded by  quite  a  number  of  admirers  who  seemed  to  spring  from 
the  ground  and  the  planked  sidewalk.  Then  I  saw  him  daily  for 
three  weeks  in  1860. 

I  was  then  a  student  of  the  Union  College  of  Law,  on  the  top 
floor  of  the  Larmon  block,  northeast  corner  of  Clark  and  Wash- 
ington streets,  now  the  Reaper  block,  on  the  same  floor  where  Judge 
Drummond  held  the  United  States  Court.  Judge  Henry  Booth  was 
then  our  dean,  and  one  morning  he  addressed  us,  telling  us  that 
there  would  begin  tomorrow  one  of  the  greatest  trials  that  had 
ever  come  up  in  the  annals  of  the  United  States  court,  and  that  he 
thought  that  it  was  his  duty  as  the  head  of  this  law  school  to  ac- 
quaint us  of  this  fact,  and  saying  if  the  class  would  promise  to  be 
there  at  eight  o'clock  A.  M.  he  would  meet  us  and  we  would  go 
through  a  good  part  of  the  lectures  by  10  A.  M.,  which  was  the 


time  the  United  States  Court  opened.  We  students  promptly  said 
we  would.  There  was  a  hare-lipped  student  about  45  or  50  years 
of  age,  a  post-graduate  named  H.  C.  Whitney,  and  he  said  he  had 
been  a  circuit  rider  with  "Old  Abe"  and  that  he  knew  the  United 
.States  Marshal,  Campbell,  quite  well,  and  if  the  class  (about  23 
students)  would  promise  to  attend  faithfully,  he  would  see  that 
seats  would  be  reserved  for  us  within  the  bar.  All  of  which  was 
carefully  carried  out. 

Prof.  Booth  especially  enjoined  us  to  watch  Edward  F.  Joy, 
who  ran  the  trial,  the  chief  counsel  of  the  Michigan  Central  rail- 
road, the  main  defendant.  Mr.  Lincoln  sat  next  to  Joy  and  was 
often  consulted- by  Joy  and  other  counsel.  Lincoln  often  addressed 
t|ie  court,  Judge  Drummond.  Lincoln  wore  his  usual  stovepipe 
hat,  which  was  indented  and  battered  in  toward  the  top,  and  half 
full  of  papers. 

I  was  present  at  the  Republican  convention  in  1860  in  the 
"Wigwam,"'  at  the  southeast  corner  of  Lake  and  Market  streets, 
and  only  a  few  feet  away  from  Norman  B.  Judd  when  he  nom- 
inated Abraham  Lincoln  for  President ;  that  happened  because  I 
was  next  to  the  tallest  man  in  "The  Wideawakes,"  and  A.  H. 
Andrews,  the  large  furniture  man,  the  next  tallest.  We  marched 
in,  on  either  side  of  the  hall  up  to  the  stage,  and  a  few  minutes 
after  reaching  there  Mr.  Judd  got  up  and  nominated  Lincoln.  After 
Judd  (who  was  the  head  of  the  Illinois  delegation)  had  concluded, 
Sheol  broke  loose.  But  the  great  speech  of  the  day  (or  rather 
night)  was  made  by  Birmingham,  of  Massachusetts,  who  got  the 
ministry  to  China  therefor. 

Again  I  saw  Lincoln  at  his  own  house  in  Springfield,  111.,  just 
after  his  nomination.  But  such  a  crowd  was  there  that  we  beat  a 
retreat  from  that  city  as  quickly  as  possible. 

The  next  time  I  saw  Lincoln  he  was  the  President  of  the 
United  States.  I  had  enlisted  in  the  Sturges  Rifles,  which,  after 
going  through  the  campaign  of  West  Virginia,  went  with  McClel- 
lan  to  Washington  after  Gen.  Scott  had  been  relieved.  The  Sturges 
Rifles  and  Barker  Dragoons  were  the  only  two  companies  in  the 
vast  army  that  were  not  regimented,  to  coin  a  word.  They  had 
enlisted  as  escort  companies  and  followed  Gen.  McClellan  wherever 
he  went.  For  months  when  "Little  Mack"  was  whipping  up  the 
army  into  a  truly  well  disciplined  shape,  we,  the  Sturges  Rifles 
and  Barker  Dragoons,  had  a  splendid  time,  save  the  eternal  drill. 
But  from  the  first  of  September  to  the  middle  of  December,  1861, 
I  saw  Lincoln  almost  daily,  and  that  shawl  now  at  the  Chicago 
Historical  Society  was,  and  is,  very  familiar  to  me.  John  Hay 
was  his  private  secretary,  and  John's  mother  and  my  mother  were 
sisters.  And  he  (John)  was  very  kind  to  me.  We  used  to  meet 
almost  nightly  in  the  executive  mansion  and  have  a  tin  pail  of 
Sand's  cream  ale — a  Chicago  concoction  of  suds,  and  no  kick 
therein — but  we  youngsters  innocently  thought  it  fine. 


Letter  to  Secretary  Stanton 

Executive  Mansion. 
January  29,  1863. 

Dear  Sir: 

Mr.  Speed  tells  me  you  wish  to  appoint  him  to  some 
agency  about  the  Goose  Creek  Salt  works,  and  he  wishes 
to  decline  it,  and  that  W.  P.  Thomasson  may  be  ap- 
pointed. I  personally  know  Mr.  Thomasson  to  be  an 
honest  and  very  competent  man,  and  fully  in  sympathy 
with   the  administration.     I   think   he    should   be   ap- 

Yours  truly, 

A.  Lincoln. 


Since  the  completion  of  Commander  Thomasson's 
paper  I  found  the  above  letter  commendatory  of  his 
father.     I  think  it  should  supplement  and  accompany 

p  p  Bernis  W.  Sherman, 

Recorder. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign 


http://www.archive.org/details/recollectionsofaOOthom 


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President  Lincoln  was  ever  on  the  alert  to  learn.  At  a  recep- 
tion, I  remember,  John  Hay,  the  introducer,  presented  Prof.  Agas- 
siz  to  President  Lincoln,  and  before  he  shook  hands  with  the  pro- 
fessor he  asked  him  how  he  pronounced  his  name. 

Another  time  early  one  hot  Sunday  morning,  Hay,  Robert  Hitt 
and  young  Villard,  who  afterward  married  Garrison's  daughter 
and  became  President  of  the  Northern  Pacific  railroad,  and  I 
were  in  the  basement  of  the  old  war  department  building,  used 
then  as  a  telegraph  office,  and  Lincoln  came  in,  said  something 
pleasant  and  then  passed  by  us  to  where  the  telegraph  blanks  were 
on  a  rack.  He  picked  up  one  and  began  writing  quickly.  Sud- 
denly he  stopped  and  looked  at  us,  and  said,  ' 'Young  gentlemen, 
when  do  you  use  a  seimcolon?"  Villard  and  Hitt  were  our  "lit- 
erary cusses"  and  they  quickly  said  a  lot,  but  I  do  not  remember 
a  single  word  they  said.  But  Lincoln,  after  taking  the  pen  from 
his  mouth,  said,  "I  never  use  it  much,  but  when  I  am  in  doubt 
what  to  use,  I  generally  employ  the  'little  fellow.'  " 

And  now  we  will  approach  a  matter  which  I  am  astonished 
that  some  of  the  biographies  of  Lincoln  never  alluded  to,  although 
Henry  Clay  Whitney  said  he  intended  to,  but  did  not  know  where 
to  enter  it  in  his  book.  And  that  was  the  way  Lincoln  enunciated 
his  words.  No  one  had  to  ask  Lincoln  the  second  time  for  art  an- 
swer. He  had  a  way  of  throwing  his  head  forward  and  his  lips 
and  features  away  from  his  teeth  that  allowed  his  words  to  come 
forth,  and  his  auditors  heard  his  clearness  and  distinctness  with 
pleasure.  He  had  imitators.  Some  say  that  Robert  R.  Hitt  made 
his  successful  career  by  mimicking  Lincoln  in  this  peculiarity.  Gov. 
Oglesby  and  Gen.  John  A.  Logan  used  to  allude  to  "Bob  Hitt  act- 
ing like  Lincoln." 

John  Hay  always  contended  that  Lincoln  popularized  the  crisp 
bacon  that  we  now  have  at  our  daily  breakfast.  We  had  fried 
salt  pork  called  "flitch." 

But  Lincoln,  out  at  the  old  soldiers'  home  where  he  used  to 
spend  the  hot  summers,  introduced  a  new  way  to  fry  this  new 
bacon  into  a  crisp  that  became  very  popular.  Lincoln  used  to  say 
he  discovered  this  mode  on  his  riding  circuit.  About  the  same  time 
General  McClellan  introduced  the  mustache.  About  this  same 
period  Kimbark,  of  Chicago,  had  a  mustache,  but  none  other  I 
can  remember  had ;  but  when  "Little  Mack"  wore  his,  then  every- 
body did,  and  as  to  sidewhiskers,  hardly  none  wore  them  until 
General  Burnside  brought  them  out. 

The  last  time  I  ever  saw  Lincoln  was  at  what  we  called  the 
50,000  review  of  regulars,  meaning  thereby  the  regular  army  and 
veterans  so-called  in  the  army  of  the  Potomac,  on  old  Capitol  hill. 
McClellan  was  there  in  all  his  glory.  Lincoln  with  McClellan  and 
staff  rode  up  and  down  the  ranks  and  the  troops,  I  thought,  once 
were  about  to  fall  down  and  worship  "Father  Abraham." 

Lincoln  was  a  big  politician — there  was  none  greater  than  he. 


{&«■"*» 


Note  how  he  wrote  James  Speed,  his  attorney  general,  to  urge  my 
father,  W.  P.  Thomasson,  ex-member  of  Congress  from  Louis- 
ville, to  accept  office  in  Kentucky.  It  is  recorded  in  Nicolay  and 
Hay's  works. 

Do  I  believe  that  the  assassination  of  Lincoln  and  the  issuing 
of  the  emancipation  proclamation  helped  the  name  and  fame  of 
Lincoln  ?  I  do.  Yet  do  not  for  one  moment  think  that  he  was  not 
a  great  man.  The  paper  on  which  the  freeing  of  the  4,000,000 
slaves  was  written  was  burnt  in  our  Chicago  fire,  but  the  4,000,000 
beings  are  still  free  and  with  their  numerous  posterity  will  always 
be  with  us. 

But  if  vou  wish  to  know  how  great  Lincoln  was,  read  his  note 
in  replv  to  Secretary  Seward's  "THOUGHTS,"  April  1,  1861; 
his  letter  to  General  Hooker,  January  26,  1863,  (after  the  latter 
had  taken  command  of  the  army  before  Chancellor  sville).  Also 
read  his  letter  to  General  Meade,  July  14,  1863,  after  Gettysburg, 
and  his  second  inaugural  address. 

I  am  very  proud  of  my  maternal  grandfather,  the  Reverend 
David  A.  Leonard,  who  now  lies  buried  at  Corydon,  Indiana.  He 
died  and  was  buried  there  when  Corydon  was  the  capital  of  Chi- 
cago and  the  Northwest  territory.  He  made  an  excellent  oration 
on  the  death  of  George  Washington  which  I  tried  to  find,  but 
could  not. 

However,  here  is  a  better  one  delivered  by  Abraham  Lincoln 

himself : 

"Washington's  is  the  mightiest  name  on  earth— long  since 
mightiest  in  the  cause  of  civil  liberty;  still  mightiest  in  the  moral 
reformation.  On  that  name  no  eulogy  is  expected.  It  cannot  be. 
To  add  brightness  to  the  sun  or  glory  to  the  name  of  Washington, 
is  alike  impossible.  Let  no  one  attempt  it.  In  solemn  awe  we 
pronounce  his  name  and  in  its  naked  deathless  splendor  leave  it 
shining  on." 

Often  near  my  office  in  the  Conway  building  I  see  visitors 
craning  their  necks,  with  heads  thrown  back,  trying  to  see  the  cross 
on  the  Temple,  across  the  street,  when,  if  they  would  walk  back  a 
block  or  more  away  they  could  see  so  much  better. 

The  same  applies  to  the  fame  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  longer 
he  is  physically  dead,  the  greater  will  his  name  be  glorified. 

NELSON  THOMASSON. 

Note:— At  the  conclusion  of  this  paper,  the  note,  letters  and 
second  inaugural  address,  above  referred  to,  were  read. 


s 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS-URBANA 

973.7L63B2T36R  C001 

RECOLLECTIONS  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  CHGO 


12  031795872 


